


Ode

by stardropdream



Category: The Musketeers (2014)
Genre: Blow Jobs, Frottage, M/M, Period-Typical Racism, Poetry, Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-09
Updated: 2014-03-09
Packaged: 2018-01-15 04:40:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,166
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1291687
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stardropdream/pseuds/stardropdream
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He is not a man of poetry, and yet he wishes that he was - wishes that he could understand what he can't grasp.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ode

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the prompt "talking during sex" and just kind of got out of hand and became a bit of introspection about Porthos and wanting to learn to read/write. 
> 
> The poem featured in the fic is "I Live, I Die, I Burn, I Drown" by Louise Labe, a French poet from the 16th century.

As a child, Porthos is never concerned about writing or reading – why would he be, after all – saw it only as something impossible to grasp, something not for _him_ , who lived among the beggars and whores, the dirt on the faces making even the prettiest of women look just like _him_. And even as a child, sitting in the dust and knowing his mother is gone forever and that his father isn’t even a memory to recall, he knows that he hates it here – that there is no miracle in his court, and the only true miracle would be that he could leave, walk in the streets that have pretty faces unmasked and undirtied.

He is good at what he does, though – even at a young age, better at stealing than most. And he doesn’t go hungry – not most days, at least. But still, there was a different hunger – something that gnawed painfully at the pit of his stomach and clawed its way over his heart whenever he stepped outside the Court of Miracles, and saw the shadows of a life he was told time and time again that he could never have.

And then one day Flea manages to steal a satchel from a nobleman. There are riches beyond riches there, enough coin to feed herself, Charon, and Porthos for weeks at least. They paw through the papers, searching for something valuable, and there’s a hardbound book rather than just scrolls, and that’s enough to fetch plenty of coin if they can think of a place to sell it off. But Porthos leafs through it, staring down at the scribbles that are _French_ and yet he cannot read it at all – and it frustrates him, that there’s such a wealth of knowledge stretching out at his fingertips and yet completely foreign and closed off to him.

The book goes “missing” and Charon and Flea are angry, but soon forget about it in lieu of the coin that fattens their purses, but Porthos stares at the pages most nights and wonders what it says – wonders if it could ever be something he could understand.

 

\---

 

_I live, I die, I burn, I drown_   
_I endure at once chill and cold_   
_Life is at once too soft and too hard_   
_I have sore troubles mingled with joys_

 

\---

 

Learning to write had been easier than reading, really. He could write out the words inside of himself if he wanted, and he would always know what it was he wanted to say. But reading was something else entirely – foreign and lofty, the authors and poets using strange words purposefully to show off their intelligence and prowess, and it leaves Porthos reeling, as if he is trying to decipher Spanish or English, something that has remnants of familiarity and is yet entirely different from what he expects.

It used to be a private thing for him – something that only he would do, and the words would flow out of him, scratchy and unfettered, childish and lacking the proper _rhetoric._ Things that would make the _poets_ scoff, because of his enjambment, his lack of proper verse, the cadences and hiatus mid-line that betray his bad blood, betray his lack of education. No one knows of it, because he knows that reactions and it makes the fire burn in his veins, his vision blurring with anger – because what kind of _mongrel_ believes himself capable of _poetry_? What kind of dog masquerades himself as a gentleman, capable of something as beautiful and _pure_ as the art of poetry?

He never tells anyone about it. Not even Flea and Charon, whom he hasn’t seen in years and who would not understand why he was trying to lift himself up, why he would leave behind the _home_ he supposedly knew. He never really mentions it to Athos or Aramis, either, although they know of it. They see how he sometimes uses the coin he wins in poker games to purchase publications, spreading the sheets out in front of him so he can devour the words, struggling to unearth some of the words he’s never seen before, his back rigid as he sounds out the words, tries to understand what is lying out before him.

He never fancies himself capable of writing anything like it – and it takes years for him to shed that shadow, that expectation that he’s just _not smart enough_ , not _poetic_ enough. He has to push past the part of himself that busily tries to curl into a little ball, joining the other bits of himself that nest in his gut and threaten to overwhelm him, bursting out of his body and saying everything that he wants to say but never does – never does because if he stats, he won’t stop, and it’ll tumble out of him and he’ll kill someone, his anger boiling over – and then he’ll just prove what they all say. That he’s a mongrel, that he is no gentleman. Even now, when he’s pulled himself out of the dust and made a life for himself, he is only ever two steps away from being _less_ , a man of stolen clothes, stolen time, and stolen letters.

 

\---

 

Aramis touches his shoulder and leans in close, and Porthos can feel his breath against his cheek as he studies the papers strewn out on the desk before Porthos. His fingertips touch at the word Porthos has been struggling over and says, gently, “Arrant.”

Porthos frowns at it, his brow knitting, and then he turns his head to find Aramis looking at him, smiling warmly, hand still on his shoulder.

“It means total,” Aramis says, and there’s no sneer or teasing in his voice, just his usual gentle pronouncement. “Complete.”

Porthos nods and turns back to the publication spread out before him. He feels embarrassed to have been caught like this, to betray his lack of vocabulary and understanding to someone like Aramis, who is poetry personified if nothing else. Romantic.

His voice is soft and musical when he speaks next, and there’s no touch of condescension when he says, “You’re doing well.”

Porthos grunts, ducking his head.

“I know you hate to be bad at something,” Aramis says quietly.

Porthos says nothing, embarrassed despite himself and mumbling gruffly as he pushes the papers away as if they aren’t important to him, as if he doesn’t want to understand or absorb the words, until they become part of them, until he can know that he _knows._ Aramis squeezes his shoulder and swans away, as is his way, understanding and saying nothing. Porthos glances over his shoulder and watches Aramis leave, watches Aramis glance over his shoulder in turn and catch his eye, smiling warmly.

“I like reading,” Porthos answers, even though Aramis is gone and he is alone, with the words stretching out before him in waves, and he wades into that stream to try to understand. “But I don’t know how to write.”

And he doesn’t understand why – he can write out the sloppy words that rattle in his mind, but the things that he feels, the things that he thinks could become poetry – it never comes. He’s spent long afternoons learning, reading everything he can find – seeing what others thought, or felt, and wondering why he can’t do the same – why he’s unable of saying what he wants.

 

\---

 

He does know how to write. But what he wants never translates – the words that weave in his head come out insufficient and stagnant on the page. He crumples up pages and tosses them into fires more often than not.

It’s such a private thing for him – something meant only for him, something that he isn’t yet ready to pretend isn’t important. Something he isn’t sure he can show anyone else. His friends would never judge, and he knows this, but he also knows that there are those shadows that claw at his back – that he is unworthy, that he is an imposter, that he is no _gentleman._

He sounds out the words until he can memorize them.

He is no _gentleman_ , then—

He sounds out the words until he feels he can write them, feels he can express it.

If he is no gentleman—

He tries to write the words out, but it’s garbage – dust and dirt and grime and unrefined.

But they’re his words.

 

\---

 

“You’re flowery,” Porthos says one day as he sits across from Aramis, a stack of cards between them and a few empty bottles of wine.

“Flowery?” Aramis mimics and then laughs, warm and amused, shaking his head fondly.

“Yeah. You know poetry and all that,” Porthos says, slowly, and he shuffles the deck of cards for something to do. He watches as Aramis brushes his fingertips over the worn wooden table between them, then slides up to curl around the lip of the bottle of wine. Porthos focuses on the cards. “Do you… have any memorized?”

“Some in Spanish,” Aramis offers, and his expression is knowing, but not unkind. “I could translate?”

“No,” Porthos says with a shake of his head. “You can just say them in Spanish.”

So they play a game of cards, and Aramis’ voice is warm and honeyed as he speaks Spanish, perfect and lilting, his eyes never meeting Porthos, but his lips always quirked into a small smile as he rolls the language easily across his tongue.

And Porthos listens – listens to the way the words flow out of Aramis as if it is easy, as if he doesn’t feel hopelessly inadequate, as if he hasn’t been waiting his entire life to be so easy with language – with any language.

But it’s beautiful – and he listens in silence until Aramis exhausts all his poetry.

 

\---

 

_Suddenly I laugh and at the same time cry_   
_And in pleasure many a grief endure_   
_My happiness wanes and yet it lasts unchanged_   
_All at once I dry up and grow green_

 

\---

 

Porthos hates to recall his past – hates to remember himself as a child – and yet he can’t help but think on it sometimes.

Perhaps there was poetry in the Court of Miracles. Just not in what he wished to see, perhaps in ways he wouldn’t wish to.

But who would waste their words on the broken and the battered? Who would wish to remember them, wish to find beauty in the bow of a beggar’s hand, or in the tilt of a whore’s throat as she laughs at nothing?

But there is dust in his lungs that keeps him from speaking the words now, and he hates it, hates that there are still those inabilities. He’s determined – he doesn’t need to be _someone_ to say _something_ , and the dust that lingers in his lungs—

Perhaps that is a poetry, too.

 

\---

 

Aramis mouths the poetry into Porthos’ mouth, and Porthos feel as if he is touching the words themselves as he kisses him back, sloppy and drunk and exhausted, but holding to him and letting Aramis press to him. His skin is softer than it should be, softer than Porthos thought it would be, but he likes the way his fingertips catch when they touch at a scar, raised flesh that never fully mended, and he likes the way Aramis’ hands feel when they touch his, too.

Aramis strips him with those poet fingers, tracing letters into Porthos’ skin, using the scars as punctuation.

“Do you ever write it?” Porthos asks as Aramis pushes him back, moving to straddle him with a little grin. He dips to press his lips to Porthos’ throat, and Porthos feels his breath hitch, feels the way Aramis’ breath brushes across his adam’s apple, tracing letters across his ribs.

“No,” Aramis admits, suckling on his neck, brushing his cheek into his jaw, feeling the scrape and burn of his beard.

Porthos isn’t disappointed by the answer, just mulls it over as he arches up beneath Aramis.

“If you were – what would you write about?” he asks, voice gruff and graveled.

Aramis hums softly, nibbling on Porthos’ ear, sucking the earring into his mouth as his fingertips drummed over his body, cupping his hips.

“About the particular jut of your hips,” he says finally, and there’s laughter in his voice.

“Come on,” Porthos mutters, embarrassed but pleased.

Aramis laughs again, smiling at him, pressing down so their chests are so close that he can feel Aramis’ heartbeat echoing in through his own, and Aramis kisses him, hot and wet and filthy – and the need, the desire for words pulses through Porthos – and not for the first time he wishes he was poetic.

“An ode,” Aramis says at last, pressing his forehead to his so that their noses bump once, and Aramis grins widely at that simple gesture. “I’d write an ode – to Porthos du Vallon, noble musketeer and gentleman.”

He says it teasingly, but there’s affection in his smile, and Porthos feels warm all over, and he’s almost embarrassed by how happy that makes him – and he smiles, wobbling and uncordinated, as if he is a child all over again and doesn’t yet know how to respond to human kindness, doesn’t yet know how to react to a person who exists beyond the need to steal and rob, beyond those walls of beggars and whores and cripples. Porthos feels that what Aramis says is true – that to him, he is worthy of poetry.

“Yeah?” he asks, and his voice is quiet.

Aramis beams at him, cupping his face and kissing him – long, sweet, and gentle.

“Yes,” he answers when he pulls back, and his voice is like a prayer. And then his gaze turns a touch mischievous when he says, “The first line would start as thus: _Oh, I long to fuck you – let it be so._ ”

Porthos bursts out into surprised laughter, deep and rumbling. And he nods his head, dragging his hands up over Aramis’ body, holding him down flushed and close. Porthos’ hands hold him in place, one hand on his hip in a grip that could bruise someone softer than Aramis, the other reaching out to stroke Aramis’ cock, stroking him until he draws out Aramis’ shiver and moan, one thumb curling across the head. Aramis moans, his body shifting against Porthos’.

“That wasn’t in verse, by the way,” Porthos says, stroking Aramis’ cock with barely restrained patience.

“Second line would read, _I’d fuck you even if you’re going to be cheeky._ ” Aramis grins and adds, “And I know that wasn’t in verse, either.”

“How poetic,” Porthos teases.

“It’s a gift,” Aramis says, pulling back enough to flutter a hand to his chest in mock modesty. He flutters his eyelashes, too, for good measure. “Just call me a poet.”

Porthos laughs and lets Aramis rock up into his touch, and he pulls him back down again so they’re chest-to-chest, his fingers curling around both their cocks and stroking once, watching the way Aramis’ mouth falls open for half a moment before he regains control of himself. There’s laughter in his eyes, and his hair falls down into his face as he arches over Porthos, leaning down so their foreheads touch for a moment, and Porthos can feel the poetry that Aramis writes with just the hitch of his breath, to write of his breath and his body with just the tilt of his head.

“Impatient,” Aramis teases, just as he always does, and his voice is lilting and gentle, longing and affection woven into the one simple word. And then, softer still, “Let me.”

And Porthos nods even as Aramis pulls back from him, leaning down to stroke his fingers feather-light across his cock, lean down to chase his fingers with his tongue, sweeping down slowly over Porthos’ cock.

He speaks the words to a Spanish poem into the side of his hip, lips smiling across his thigh as he leans in and licks at the underside of his Porthos’ cock, taking the cockhead into his mouth and suckling with an impish smile when he looks up to meet Porthos’ eyes. His fingertips trace out the words he speaks, and Porthos shudders once, feeling those words skirt across his entire body and burrow inside – as if it is his and only his, meant only for his ears, as if Aramis is the one to speak these words for the first time and mean them only for Porthos.

Aramis is slow, teasing, and each line of poetry is punctuated by the slide of his tongue or the stretch of his smiling lips, gentle and slow and moving as if he has all the time in the world. Porthos bucks his hips up when he grows too impatiently, and Aramis obediently slides his mouth down over Porthos, taking him deep into his mouth even as he hums out happily, laughing, his tongue tracing over him as if still speaking the words.

When he’s close, and starts to thrash a little more desperately, Aramis pulls back and shimmies up his body, pressing down close to him and smiling at him, leaning down to kiss him. Porthos swallows the words Aramis doesn’t say, but arches up when it’s Aramis to curl his hand around both their cocks and stroke them off to completion. Porthos arches as he comes, spilling out over Aramis’ hand and feeling his body contract and curl, content as he sighs out Aramis’ name into the greedy kiss between them.

Aramis is laughing softly against Porthos’ neck, pressing close to him and nuzzling. Porthos thinks there’s poetry there, too. Aramis strokes his fingers into Porthos’ hair, staying close, his expression gentle when he pulls back to smile at him.

And Porthos wishes he had the words for it, to answer that look. Words that would be suitable and exquisite and suitable to Aramis. Words that would make Aramis laugh, gentled, and stay close through the night.

But whatever words he’s unable to say, Aramis seems to see in his expression, because his eyes soften and he touches Porthos’ face as if he himself is a poem.

 

\---

 

_Thus I suffer love's inconstancies_   
_And when I think the pain is most intense_   
_Without thinking, it is gone again._

_Then when I feel my joys certain_   
_And my hour of greatest delight arrived_   
_I find my pain beginning all over once again._

 

\---

 

The fire stokes itself with his discarded words more often than not.

But the words flow, and they are his words – and he destroys their physical presence but never their presence rattling down inside of him, waiting to claw out.

Aramis touches his shoulder sometimes, and the sweep of his fingertips are words he doesn’t say – things like love, like light and touch and solace. Pretty words that flit and fly and never linger.

Aramis looks at him and smiles and dutifully recites the Spanish poetry, and Porthos listens even as he understands only one or two words – it doesn’t matter.

He listens to Aramis and Aramis speaks to him, in a language he doesn’t yet understand.

But he will eventually.


End file.
